Sensor and greyout issue with Elite Dangerous

Talmanes · April 2017

Hello,

I am wondering if anyone else is having this issue, and if they've come across any solutions.

My Oculus headset and single sensor work great in Oculus home, in Chronos, Dreamdeck, and other apps. I only experience problems when running Elite Dangerous. I believe these issues originated after the 1.13 update (I'm currently on version 1.14).

The problems include grey-out flashes, jerky tracking problems, and sensor issues. I've tried a host of solutions, but none seem to work. I have an inateck 5 port USB card plugged into my mobo (yes, the power is connected). I've tried plugging the headset and sensor into it, and plugging the sensor into my onboard USB (both 2.0 and 3.0). Neither resolve the issue.

I've gotten sensor errors in Oculus, which I've posted an image of here (the USB warning is due to using windows inateck drivers).

I've also tried turning off my USB 3.0 legacy settings in the bios, and plugging the sensor into my onboard 3.0 inputs. Still no dice.

Everything is up to date, including video drivers.

I read that using inateck's USB drivers cause problems (and i ran into these problems in the past) so I'm using the windows drivers for the USB card.

Observing CPU usage while the issues happen shows it peaking at 55%, so I don't think that's the problem.

Oculus Support Recommendations:

I've contacted support, and they requested that I run the compatibility test (which I ran & passed), ensure everything was up to date (which it is), and update to the Public Test Channel program, which updates my oculus software to 1.14 (did this too).

I explained that the problem persisted, and they suggested I re-install elite dangerous, connect the rift to another computer, and if that doesn't reveal the problem, re-install the Oculus software.

I suspect that these last recommendations will not resolve the problem, and just take up a lot of time. My guess is that it's USB related. Does anyone else have any ideas as to what could be causing this?

Specs:
Windows 10
Intel Core i7-3770k CPU @ 3.5GHz
16 GB RAM
NVIDIA GTX 1070
Oculus CV1

Talmanes · April 2017

One more thing to note - I have set USB selective suspend setting to disabled.

frbie · April 2017

Same issue here with a fresh install of Elite Dangerous. I solved by switching the bad sensor from USB 3 to USB 2. The sensor ran perfectly for several month before 1.13 without problems.

cybereality · April 2017

Could be a USB or driver issue. Note that the recommended card is the 4-port Inateck.
https://www.amazon.com/Inateck-Superspeed-Ports-PCI-Expansion/dp/B00B6ZCNGM

Talmanes · April 2017

cybereality said:

Could be a USB or driver issue. Note that the recommended card is the 4-port Inateck.
https://www.amazon.com/Inateck-Superspeed-Ports-PCI-Expansion/dp/B00B6ZCNGM

Correction - I have the 4 port USB card

BeRReGoN · April 2017

I had sensor problems too with poor tracking. and it was fine after I disabled XMP Profile in the bios. Don't know why but you can check if this works for you also.

MAC_MAN86 · April 2017

Jumps and Flashes are fixed by setting Affinity settings: -
Run ED then go to TASK MANAGER>DETAILS: Right-Click Affinity

ED64: cores 0-5
OculusVR: cores 6-7 (this file may be new in latest Public Test update)
OVRServer_64: cores 6-7

OCULUS must now code this so we do not require manual or autohotkey programs.
Source: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/121355-Getting-the-Best-DK2-CV1-Vive-VR-Experience-Guide-Compendium?p=5404960#post5404960

Talmanes · April 2017

MAC_MAN86 said:

Jumps and Flashes are fixed by setting Affinity settings: -
Run ED then go to TASK MANAGER>DETAILS: Right-Click Affinity

ED64: cores 0-5
OculusVR: cores 6-7 (this file may be new in latest Public Test update)
OVRServer_64: cores 6-7

OCULUS must now code this so we do not require manual or autohotkey programs.
Source: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/121355-Getting-the-Best-DK2-CV1-Vive-VR-Experience-Guide-Compendium?p=5404960#post5404960

Thanks for the tip, but I've tried this and it doesn't seem to do the trick.

I did switch my sensor to another USB 2.0, and that helped somewhat...however I'm still getting the occasional flash of grey and jerkiness. Still hoping someone has a solution to resolve this, it's incredibly distracting.

SHNYZ · April 2017

i have the same problem with il2 stalingrad, dcs world, asseto corsa and more

GATOxVoS · April 2017

I'm no computer expert by any means, but since the minimum required i3-6100 has better single thread performance than the 3770k, couldn't that lead to truncated frames, especially with higher demanding games like elite dangerous?

I was able to run VR back in 2016, but only because I overclocked my i5-3570k to 4.5 Ghz. I don't think it would've liked running VR at stock settings. (by no means am I saying overclocking your CPU is the answer though)

YoLolo69 · April 2017

Xsjadia said:

I'm no computer expert by any means, but since the minimum required i3-6100 has better single thread performance than the 3770k, couldn't that lead to truncated frames, especially with higher demanding games like elite dangerous?

I was able to run VR back in 2016, but only because I overclocked my i5-3570k to 4.5 Ghz. I don't think it would've liked running VR at stock settings. (by no means am I saying overclocking your CPU is the answer though)

I7 3770 K is overall better than I3-6100 and similar on pure single core performance:

http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i7-3770K-vs-Intel-Core-i3-6100/1317vs3511

I have 3 sensors with Touch and don't have any problem at all using my i7 3770k, but mine is overclocked to 4,45GHz.

GATOxVoS · April 2017

@YoLolo69 - I suppose we just used different sites for our data

over here http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/496/Intel_Core_i3_i3-6100_vs_Intel_Core_i7_i7-3770K.html#bench1 they have the i3-6100 outperforming the 3770k in single core benches from 3.5% to 10.6%. And as I understood it, *the smoothness of* the VR experience was much more reliant on single-core performance than multi-threaded. (multi-threaded, of course the 3770k just flat out beats the tiny i3-6100)

I agree that the difference can be negligible, but seeing as this is the minimum specification to run VR, these small differences could be making an impact on VR performance.

And yes, once overclocking the 3770k, it should have no problems as you just gained over 20% in performance (on paper) with the 4.45 Ghz overclock.

*edit*

Mace404 · April 2017

I have the same problem with Elite Dangerous.
2 days ago I had it the worst losing complete tracking after a window focus change. (looking up something in EDDB using Chrome)
Constant grey'ish screen and only HMD rotation worked.
Had to restart the complete run-time to fix this. (Elite only wasn't enough).
Every app had the problem from that point, including Home.

Normally it are frequent and noticeable flashes and tracking jumping.
Happens mostly when directly looking at a sensor.

Already tried the affinity thing, no noticeable results.

I'll dump some logs tonight.

edit: havent played a while because of a fever (needs more cowbell)
also saw a new public beta patch so will try again soon.

Hornet_F4C · April 2017

YoLolo69 said:

I have 3 sensors with Touch and don't have any problem at all using my i7 3770k, but mine is overclocked to 4,45GHz.

I use the same CPU even at stock speeds (3.5Ghz - 3.9Ghz, depending on used cores), also not having any problems so far.

But have yet to try 1.14 Oculus runtime. Hope it will work well.

MAC_MAN86 · April 2017

To Staff: Can OCULUS work with FD to make Elite:Dangerous VR Optimized?
It is your number 1 best Space Sim and will no doubt out last anything else too.

Make it OPTIMIZED for VR and do this right guys.

Talmanes · April 2017

MAC_MAN86 said:

To Staff: Can OCULUS work with FD to make Elite:Dangerous VR Optimized?
It is your number 1 best Space Sim and will no doubt out last anything else too.

Make it OPTIMIZED for VR and do this right guys.

PLEASE DO THIS Oculus.

stevegoble · May 2017

Same issue here.

Mace404 · May 2017

With the latest (public beta?) update I no longer have the flashes! Yay

Still have the jumping around and posted logs in the topic over here:
https://forums.oculus.com/community/discussion/42775/screen-jumping-randomly-in-the-rift/p3

Talmanes · May 2017

Can't edit my original post, but I found a work-around (finally).

Boot up into BIOS
Navigate to Advanced -> CPU
Disable Hyperthreading

Slight performance hit, but no more gray flashes.

vannagirl · May 2017

an amigo has this badly it has stopped us playing in elite until she gets a fix, kinda sucky its only elite shes tested a number of games exps and it is only there. Was going to go visit the generation ship

is been okay for me though, i asked her to post the bugs in the elite forum, hopefully there is a fix coming

Talmanes · May 2017

Spoke too soon. Logged back into elite today and am now getting about 1 flash per second. No idea what changed.

elboffor · May 2017

Ive never had hyperthreasing enabled in rift and i get very occasional grey flashes too

Talmanes · May 2017

SO I stumbled upon something that has so far been a workable solution for me!

It's so stupidly easy...

step 1: unplug HMD from inateck usb card
step 2: plug HMD into 3.0 USB mobo slot
step 3: plug sensor into inateck usb card

BOOM - no more flashies, and no more sensor errors.

I've turned hyperthreading back on, and tested for a couple hours today without any issues.

I hope this helps some of you out there who have been struggling with this.

MAC_MAN86 · May 2017

FIXED in Public Beta 1.15 at long last!
https://forums.oculus.com/community/discussion/comment/518160#Comment_518160

Zweistein000 · May 2017

Mace404 said:

I have the same problem with Elite Dangerous.
2 days ago I had it the worst losing complete tracking after a window focus change. (looking up something in EDDB using Chrome)
Constant grey'ish screen and only HMD rotation worked.
Had to restart the complete run-time to fix this. (Elite only wasn't enough).
Every app had the problem from that point, including Home.

Normally it are frequent and noticeable flashes and tracking jumping.
Happens mostly when directly looking at a sensor.

Already tried the affinity thing, no noticeable results.

I'll dump some logs tonight.

edit: havent played a while because of a fever (needs more cowbell)
also saw a new public beta patch so will try again soon.

This keeps happening to me and while the latest Beta driver solves the greyout issues, it does not solve the issue where occasionally oculus rift stops tacking and the frame freezes. This issue is very annoying for me as it requires a full PC restart (just restarting runtime and Elite Dangerous does not work). Moreover this issue makes me very motion-sick.

I have had my friend and wing-mate report smae issues on his CV1.

EDIT: This is the third time this evening.

Turranius · May 2017

i've never had a single gray "blink" in Elite Dangerous before. I noticed it once or twice with 1.14, especially in stations and when looking down on your knees but nothing that bothered me. This was yesterday.

Today, still on 1.14, I get horrible blinking for no reason what so ever. No changes made since yesterday and no updates. Its not even playable any more.

I noticed that my "Rift" was plugged into USB 2.0 according to Oculus home (sensors on USB3). Its not. I grabbed an extension cable and plugged it into another USB slot in the front and it now says USB3. Ok, thats strange but does not help ED. Blink blink blink in gray when I look around.

So I join the public beta and let it install 1.15. No difference either.

I'm one of those who never had any problems with my Rift so I'm a bit baffled. I do have 2 sensors. All my USB ports are in my motherboard (AZUS Z97-A)

YoLolo69 · May 2017

I don't know if that could be the problem here, but be sure to not have Avast and its Game Mode enabled, and same thing with the Windows Creator Update and its Game Mode (through the GameBar). Both are know to prioritize the game process you are using (here Elite), letting too little CPU room for other processes to run, like Oculus drivers. Windows Game Mode was the problem for me, and forums are full of persons having similar issue with the Game Mode of Avast.

Turranius · May 2017

I've disabled Antivirus (just windows defender) and malwarebytes for testing. I'm still on Windows 10 x64 1607, so no game mode.

Looking at the CPU cores, none of them go above 30-40% when looking around in Elite D

UPDATE: I reset ED to "VR HIGH", reset super sampling (oculus tray tool) and reinstalled the Nvidia drivers (Latest GTX 1080 drivers). I then rebooted just to be safe. No blinking at all.
I reset super sampling to what it was before (1.5) and still no blinking. Running at 90FPS (ASW enabled) with 11% performance overhead).

So yeah, not sure what that was, but it was not the CPU running at 100%, thats for sure

UPDATE2: I still get the single grey flicker when I first look down after logging in or docking at a station. That, I can live with.

wwLuke · February 2018

I had the same problem and solved it, by changing in the Nvidia 3d settings. The last opinion there is "number of pre rendered vr pictures". It was set to 1 and I changed it to "let the application decide" this helped in all vr games!

MAC_MAN86 · June 2019

Same as RIFT S right now or similar!

Sensor and greyout issue with Elite Dangerous

Comments

Howdy, Stranger!

Quick Links

Categories